Wanted: Real People; No Experience Required

The entertainment industry faces a potential crisis, albeit one that appears largely of its own making and excess.

It is rapidly running out of real people.

Not just any real people, mind you, but young, good-looking real people--the kind willing to lay bare their personal lives, have their images edited, shaped and spliced, and say inane things on command. Moreover, to remain useful, these people must be able to do all this and still seem “real,” as opposed to looking like shameless show-biz wannabes and shills.

If finding such folks sounds simple, consider some of the recent headlines surrounding the marketing of feature films. Studios fabricating critics to provide them with positive reviews, or casting their own employees in “man on the street” ads touting movies such as “The Patriot” and “Waking Ned Devine”--as if there’s a shortage of reviewers who will say something positive about anything or, for that matter, a sudden dearth of indiscriminating moviegoers. If that were true, “Dr. Dolittle” and “Jurassic Park” wouldn’t be invading multiplexes this summer with numbers affixed to them.

Yet the furor surrounding these revelations overlooks what the burgeoning demand for real people is doing to the world of television, where those on the hunt for exploitable people not only often play fast and loose with the truth but can also sometimes wind up getting exploited themselves.

Daytime talk shows, for example, have at times fallen prey to con artists who flit from program to program, answering calls for guests to appear under the heading “I Hate My Teenage Daughter’s Sexy Clothes!” one day on “Maury” or “Jenny” and “My Cheatin’ Husband Left Me for My Sister!” the next day on “Sally Jessy” or “Ricki.”

Game shows have long faced a somewhat less embarrassing problem, giving rise to what amounts to a special class of professional contestants. Small wonder, then, that the record $2.18-million winner on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” Kevin Olmstead, had not only previously won $27,000 on “Jeopardy!” but also is friends with an earlier “Millionaire” winner, David Goodman.

While it’s wonderful people have found an outlet for trivial knowledge, being on a game show is supposed to be a lark, not a career choice.

Then there are the “relationship” shows, from “Blind Date” to “Change of Heart” to “Temptation Island.” Producers try to avoid stacking the deck with aspiring actors and models--one reason those responsible for “casting” the next “Temptation Island” have opted to skip Los Angeles as they stage made-for-TV recruiting events around the U.S., instead seeking attractive people with poor judgment in cities such as Cleveland and Philadelphia.

One has to imagine that feeding these hungry beasts genuinely real people--as opposed to bartenders and waitresses with head shots and community theater credits--must be especially challenging. After all, how many stunningly beautiful singles do you know who are so lovelorn and bereft of self-esteem that they would pimp themselves out in this fashion without cameras rolling?

Television’s daytime hours are also filled with people willing to leave their legal claims to the whims of Judge Judy or Judge Joe Brown. Others sought guidance from “Moral Court,” which transformed otherwise witty local radio host Larry Elder into a straight-faced dispenser of justice--even when grappling with such cases as whether a dwarf should recover money from another dwarf for allowing himself to be dwarf-tossed.

The supply-side dilemma in regard to real people has surely gained momentum with the major networks joining in the search for such pliable folk.

Though the second “Survivor” remained a ratings hit, many viewers couldn’t help but notice that the new cast felt a little more manicured or Hollywood-ized the second time around--in other words, less real.

The price of admission for ordinary people in prime time also keeps rising, as demonstrated by the latest mutations on the genre from NBC, which require people willing to put themselves in harm’s way in exchange for a few fleeting moments of fame.

Critics have had a field day mauling “Fear Factor”--which features such stunts as burying contestants neck deep in rats and worms--and “Spy TV,” a hidden-camera show that relies in part on people idiotic enough to put unsuspecting friends in ridiculous situations.

Now, before you say producers will never run short of such organic cannon-fodder and numskulls, would you want to do the former or ever speak again to a “friend” who set you up for the latter?

Then again, even those simply on hand to laugh, howl and whoop at such shenanigans are often in short supply these days, with some programs being forced to hire the happy cheering faces you see in their studio audiences. (Comedy Central’s “The Man Show” has its own novel solution, plying the audience with free beer.)

Others, as Times reporter Dana Calvo documented in March, agree to sit through tapings to secure seats at more coveted events--enduring two sitcoms, say, in exchange for being a seat-filler at a star-studded awards show.

Producers don’t always make life easy on real people desperate for a few moments in TV’s spotlight. In a letter sent to semifinalists for the upcoming second edition of CBS’ “Big Brother,” for example, the producers ominously tell the candidates that all information regarding the series must be kept “in the strictest confidence. This includes contact with all media . . . as well as friends and family.”

“In the event you do disclose any of this show information without the producer’s prior approval, your disclosure will be cause for your immediate removal from the selection process. We’re sure you realize the need for this policy with regards to the success of the show and will comply without hesitation.”

Though such precautions are understandable to safeguard a producer’s investment, if you’re going on one of these shows because you’re a fame-obsessed exhibitionist, as many are, isn’t this sort of discretion a little much to expect?

Of course, thousands of applications continue to pour in for such shows, but producers note that such a vast pool is necessary to find a handful of contestants--people TV viewers will find appealing who lack an affiliation with the program’s corporate parent, a lengthy prison record or a serious mental defect that might, say, inspire them to snap and kill somebody.

Wouldn’t it be ironic, then, if this is the ultimate fallout of what networks have come to label “reality” programming: In their seemingly inexhaustible appetite for the absurd, for people who can be convincingly real, they may eventually leave themselves no choice but to hire . . . actors.

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Brian Lowry’s column appears on Wednesdays. He can be reached at brian.lowry@latimes.com.